


Tender Things

by orangeflavor



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Family Issues, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Identity Issues, Loss, Prejudice, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 04:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8735680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeflavor/pseuds/orangeflavor
Summary: “Nothing beautiful has ever existed between their two worlds.”  -  Kira and Ziyal.  The space in-between.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [biggestdisappointmentinwarfare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggestdisappointmentinwarfare/gifts).



> Done as a gift fic for biggestdisappointmentinwarfare. I'm insultingly late with this but I hope you love it nonetheless, hon. Pretty much follows canon. The only difference is the scrunched timeline of Ziyal leaving for Bajor and the Dominion taking over Deep Space Nine. Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Tender Things

" _Nothing beautiful has ever existed between their two worlds."_ \- Kira and Ziyal. The space in-between.

* * *

There were no stars to be seen at the Breen labor camp. Ziyal had forgotten for a time that they could be beautiful, that she could mistake a soft spark of light for her father's ship, or that she could feel far smaller and lost in its wide expanse than she ever did in the dank tunnels of the Breen mine.

Ziyal was no stranger to stone or shadow or blistered hands.

And in some way, those things would always be a small comfort.

Familiar.

On Deep Space Nine, she thinks sometimes she could drown in the stars, their cold light just beyond the glass. Her fingers splay against the station window and stay anchored there.

So wide and big and far, far more than she thinks she's ready for.

"Hey."

It is a soft whisper of a greeting, and Ziyal turns – hand still pressed to cold glass – and watches Kira Nerys as she steps up beside her, hands held at her back.

She looks nothing like her mother.

"Major Kira," Ziyal greets, head dipping slightly in respect.

Kira smiles indulgently, a soft shake of her head. "Please, Ziyal, call me Nerys."

The young woman can only nod, lip pulled between her teeth. Her gaze goes back to the dark.

Somewhere in the distance, the mouth of the wormhole creeps open, a swirl of light and dust like a bright eddy of paint, feather-soft to the eye, before it collapses in on itself in a smooth ripple, blinking out into darkness once more.

"Are you adjusting to station life well?"

Kira's voice is the first warm thing she's found since boarding the station.

"Well enough."

Life bustles on behind them, a tired dragging of feet not unlike those in the mine.

We are all slaves to something, Ziyal thinks.

Her free hand moves to touch the bridge of her nose, her fingers tentative and still-learning.

Kira's hand slides over her shoulder, turning her slightly. "You know you can come to me, anytime, right?"

Ziyal's hand falls from her face and she smiles up at the major. "I know. Thank you."

"Of course."

"It's just…" She doesn't know if the words will ever sound right. "I miss my father."

Kira's throat flexes at the admission, but her smile stays steadily put, her hand tightening minutely over Ziyal's shoulder. "I'm sure you do."

Because what more can be said?

They watch each other silently for many moments, and then Ziyal's hand slips from the glass and rests over Kira's on her shoulder. Their fingers lock, and it is warmth Ziyal hadn't even realized she needed.

This time, her smile stays put for longer.

Kira still looks nothing like her mother.

* * *

They drink raktajinos together every other morning. It starts as a small gesture on Kira's part to make Ziyal more comfortable on the station, to familiarize her with a routine, to slowly submerge her in the ebb and flow of Deep Space Nine. Ziyal has few friends on the station, Kira knows, and even fewer whom she can claim to trust. But sometimes a hot mug between the hands and a friendly smile across the table is all one needs to ease the coiled bundle of caution loose.

Kira would be lying if she said she didn't also need these mornings. Because on days when her exhaustion and her resentment hook their claws in her back and _pull_ , she needs a face that reminds her that there are still survivors out there – still those whose present isn't marred by the past.

Not truly anyway. Not entirely.

Ziyal smiles and sometimes Kira wonders how many died and how often in that mine and did she ever hold a friend's head in her lap as they breathed their last.

The universe has never been kind to tender things.

"I think you've been treating me too often," Ziyal teases between sips of her raktagino. "I'm getting spoiled."

Kira's responding smile is warm, hidden partially behind her own mug. She braces her elbows along the table and raises a brow at the young woman. "And you object to a little spoiling?"

"Well," she begins, eyes drifting off as a smirk graces her lips, "Only a very little." She giggles and lowers her mug to the table.

Kira nods, smiling.

"My father spoils me enough." Ziyal slowly slides her mug back and forth between her hands along the tabletop, her eyes suddenly fixed to the lightly sloshing liquid, lips pursed.

Kira's fingers flex along her mug's handle, though she makes no other outward show acknowledging the statement.

Ziyal sighs then, dropping back along her chair. "I wonder if…" She trails off, eyes slipping up toward the ceiling.

Kira clears her throat softly. "If…?" she encourages.

The younger woman blows a tense breath of air through her lips and shakes her head. "Maybe he never should have taken me from that mine."

Kira's hand slides across the table to envelop Ziyal's. "Hey, don't even think that."

Looking back down, Ziyal locks gazes with Kira. "I know very well I wouldn't even be here if you hadn't…convinced him." Her lip is caught between her teeth then.

Kira is too used to the young girl's smile to feel anything less than disappointment when she finds it gone.

Swallowing tightly, Kira answers her. "Your father…loves you." She is sure he does. Sure he _must_. Because she needs to believe in a universe where a girl like this isn't so gentle and good for nothing – where a girl like this will always have the love she needs because she _deserves_ it.

But then, Kira knows – all too well, and all too intimately – that what one receives is hardly ever in line with what one deserves. And that imbalance is too often a heavy load to bear to those who can recognize its presence.

Especially in others.

Ziyal's soft, rueful laugh makes Kira's chest constrict. Such a sound doesn't belong on her lips. "Even you hesitate when you say it," Ziyal says. Her eyes drift back down to the tabletop. It is suddenly so bright on the promenade.

Kira's lips dip into a frown. "It doesn't matter what I say, though. You know that don't you? You know that all that matters is what you can trust."

"But you see, Nerys, I _do_ trust in that." Ziyal's fingers tighten along her mug, her gaze snapping up to Kira's. "I… _do_ trust that he loves me. But even still – even still…" Her shoulders slump with the words. "Maybe that isn't enough."

No, Kira remembers, the universe has never been kind to tender things. Things like hearts and hope and motherless children. Things like Ziyal.

"What do you mean?" It is a soft, compassionate whisper that leaves her.

Ziyal blinks, and the sudden sheen of wetness along her eyes looks all too familiar for Kira's liking.

"You know," Ziyal begins, "when my father took me to Cardassia, I knew. I knew it would be different. That to fit in might be impossible and that he might be the only warm face to greet me for a long, long while, but –" She stops, licks her lips, continues. "But I didn't think it'd be so _hard_. Not after what I'd been through in the crash and the mine and – and maybe it seems silly and immature but it was just so _lonely_ and I didn't – I didn't think finding my way would make me wish I had _stayed_ lost. I didn't think I'd ever find a world where my father's love wouldn't be enough."

A beat of silence stretches out between them as the station bustles on past their intimate table. Kira's eyes slide softly closed, a low rush of air leaving her in a single steady breath. "Oh, Ziyal." It is all she can say for several grievous moments.

Their drinks have gone cold in their hands.

Ziyal sniffs, wiping a hand along her nose, blinking back the moistness as she stares back up at the ceiling. Tears never fall.

Kira wonders if they ever will.

"Oh, Ziyal," she breathes again, her hand tightening over the young girl's.

Nothing she can think to say will ever be enough.

But Ziyal nods, gaze still locked on the ceiling, a slow, hesitant, shaky smile breaking across her lips. "I know."

The words settle heavy and blaring between them.

 _I know_.

The long stretch between what she does and what she doesn't know has never seemed so vast.

Because – Kira realizes – to know her father's love is not the same as knowing _him_.

And for the first time Kira begins to wonder if Ziyal has always known that.

* * *

Kira catches sight of Ziyal's profile on the promenade as she laughs. It is loud and uninhibited and ends on a soft snort that she tries to cover with a hand, eyes going wide in half embarrassment, half surprise. And then she drops her hand and bares a brilliant smile.

And she looks so _happy_ it nearly hurts to watch.

Kira's halfway to raising her hand in greeting, mouth already forming the young girl's name, when she steps around a column and sees the other participant in Ziyal's conversation.

Garak smiles indulgently at Ziyal, eyes going soft.

Ziyal's hand lights along his arm as she says something Kira cannot hear from her distance, her smile steadily put. Garak looks down at the touch and something crosses over his face that carries far less caution that Kira cares for. His mouth opens, closes, opens again. But then Ziyal squeezes his elbow tenderly and nods before turning to leave, tossing a farewell over her shoulder. He stays watching the spot she left until Kira makes her way toward him.

He blinks into awareness at her presence. "Major," he greets, shoulders straightening, arms folding behind him.

She can still see the image of Ziyal's back as she makes her way through the crowd. "You two seem to be rather close these days."

He lifts an inquisitive brow her way but says nothing, turning to watch the retreating young woman as well.

Something bristles inside Kira. She folds her arms across her chest. "A little too close, I think." She makes no pains to hide the disapproval in her tone.

Garak only offers an amused grin. "She's highly self-determinant, if you hadn't noticed, Major. I doubt I could persuade her to alter her affections."

Kira catches something in his tone that sounds almost like smugness, but it is too bewildered to truly be such, and the way he dips his chin toward the ground, his gaze raking the floor before he looks back across the bustling courtyard – something tells Kira he finds the thought just as disturbing as she.

Flexing her fingers over her crossed arms, Kira fixes her gaze to the starboard window. "Then maybe you should try harder."

A sigh, something like defeat in his tone. "Clearly, you do not approve of our…acquaintance."

Her shoulders tighten at the word. Her brows furrow. "People like her…" The words still on her tongue. She has to swallow them back, let them simmer in her gut a moment before they can make it to air.

There are few things she is hesitant to say aloud.

Shame is of them.

"People like her aren't meant to love people like you."

Garak swallows thickly, jaw clenching.

"They aren't meant to love people like…us," she corrects, her throat tightening on the words.

Garak manages to look at her then. "People like us?"

Kira nods, gaze falling to the floor. "Liars," she offers in explanation, little though it does.

He has nothing to say to that, and she doesn't think he would ever rebuke it. So they stand in stilted silence as the station's occupants mill about them.

Suddenly, it is just so crowded. So busy. So…overwhelming.

There is no air here to breathe.

"Still," Garak begins, arms sliding from their hold behind his back to rest at his sides, "I suppose having another Cardassian aboard the station has its…comfort." He will not look at her then.

And she can look at nothing else. "She is _not_ Cardassian," she finds herself saying. And then her tongue feels heavy and her chest feels tight and she can't take it back now that the words have found air. Even still, she doesn't _want_ to. "She's not Cardassian," she repeats, this time a tremulous whisper. "Not like those you and I know." She must turn away then, focus on the cold bit of space just outside the station window.

She's aware of how jaded this sounds, how superior, how belittling. But some part of her revels in it. Some part of her as waited for a day to laud this over a Cardassian.

To exalt in their filth and their treachery and their baseness, and be _better_ for it.

Some part of her will never be able to apologize. And maybe it's easier to say such a thing to Garak because deep down, in the heart she thinks might slowly be betraying her, she knows he is far, far more than her hatred.

"I suppose you're right," he answers finally, pursing his lips in thought. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. "But then, by that definition, she isn't Bajoran either."

Kira finds her mouth tipping open but no words come. No words come for a long, long time, and finally, when the silence has done more to her twisted, wretched gut than any words he could sling, she finds the strength to walk away.

For the first time in her life, Kira begins to question whether it is better to belong nowhere, than to be torn in two.

Whether either side can exist while the other lives.

Whether anything beautiful could ever exist between their two worlds.

Death was the only thing Bajor and Cardassia ever seemed capable of sharing.

Garak watches Kira's retreat for several moments, but she never looks back.

* * *

The Federation is deserting the station.

Ziyal runs through the frantic promenade searching – searching for anyone. A face. A friend. Something to anchor her in the tide.

"Ziyal!"

She whips around to find Kira standing stock still past several scurrying station residents, eyes locked on her. Her face is pinched tight, the frustration warring with the fear until only the certainty, only the wretched resignation is clear in the stark promenade lights. She moves to her.

They meet halfway across the courtyard, hands clasping together. Ziyal looks up into Kira's face and finds her words have left her.

Everything was leaving her.

Desertion had never felt so personal before.

Even the hesitant excitement of seeing her father's face once more isn't enough to dash the ache from her.

"What's happening, Nerys? Why is everyone…what is going on?" She glances about her, eyes wide.

"The Dominion is coming." Kira has never shied away from the bluntness of truth, especially with Ziyal.

The young woman swallows tightly, stiffening.

Kira's hand moves along her elbow and then she is tugging her past the courtyard. "The Federation is leaving. They're abandoning the station."

"What? But why?" She runs along after Kira obediently.

"They stay and they die," she answers succinctly, eyes forward.

Ziyal doesn't say more, only follows along. The crowd thins slightly past the main courtyard. And then Ziyal is stumbling to a halt. "Wait, wait. What about Garak?"

Kira grinds her teeth and stills at Ziyal's insistent tug. She glances back to her. "There's no time for goodbyes."

Her mouth tips open and then she pulls her arm from Kira's grasp, not roughly, but firmly, her back straightening. "I have to find him." She turns to go.

"Ziyal, I'm sending you to Bajor. You'll be safe there."

"But _Nerys_ -"

"Your father is coming."

That stops her.

But only for a moment. Because she has learned to love two men now, though never side by side, and she wonders if the halves of her heart will ever be able to reconcile, or if she will always have to turn her back on one to love the other.

She had wasted away in that Breen mine wishing for death if she could not have a father.

But she is just so tired of being torn in two. Just so tired of teetering over that line, ever in motion, ever unsteady, ever unfixed.

To be whole – and to be _loved_ wholly – Ziyal wonders if they would laugh at her for such foolishness.

Licking her lips, Ziyal turns slowly back to Kira. People rush past them in desperate haste, some for ships, some for goodbyes, some yet for one last defiant act of rebellion before the Dominion's shadow overtakes them.

A single, steady breath in, her shoulders pulled taut, Ziyal looks at Kira. "I will wait for him, for my father. I am used to waiting for him." Her smile is soft and somewhat lilted. "Because I know he will always come for me. Even after…" She trails off, the memory of his angry, spiteful words still vibrant in her mind.

_Even after he had left me to die, because I would not join him._

Because she had chosen Garak. Because…

Because she has learned to love two men now, though they will never stand side by side.

"But…" She sighs, head dipping low, brow furrowed. "I couldn't forgive myself if I left Garak without him knowing ."

Kira steps toward her, confusion and aggravation flooding her features in equal measure. "Without him knowing what?" she breathes harshly.

Ziyal looks at her then, her eyes resting along the ridges of the Major's nose. So familiar, and yet a stranger all at once. Her own mirror has always lied to her.

Bajoran or Cardassian.

In the end, she never gets a clear answer.

"That I'll be waiting for him, too." She blinks up into Kira's face, and she thinks maybe she should be hurt by the clear displeasure blanketing her features.

Always torn in two. Always caught between.

She feels her lungs filling with a steady clench of air. "I don't know how else to love, but to wait."

Kira pulls a tight breath in, her face shifting suddenly, her eyes a bright sheen.

Ziyal blinks in astonishment a moment, before Kira is suddenly pulling her into her arms, and she can no longer see her face – that face that looked close to crying but too stubborn and too guarded to ever admit such.

Ziyal hugs her back, and when they release each other, no other words are passed between them. Kira heaves a reluctant sigh, eyes closed, face turned from her. And then she brushes Ziyal's touch away, nodding back the way they came.

She leaves her then, standing in the promenade.

Because she knows Kira will wait as well.

Because she knows – not all things in this life desert her.

* * *

"I hear congratulations are in order."

Ziyal turns at Kira's voice, finds the Major leaning casually against the rail across her table, the bustle of Quark's bar slightly dimmed from her second floor seating. Her smile is instant and natural, though short and stunted – never reaching her eyes.

Her smiles have been thus with the Major for many days now.

Ever since their dinner with her father.

Kira approaches with a warm expression on her face, and Ziyal knows it hides her dismay, her caution.

She is still, and always will be, Gul Dukat's daughter.

Ziyal had thought there was enough love between them to forget such a fact but then she wonders – did she have to abandon her father to have Kira's love as well? Did the price of others' love mean denying his? His, that had always been hers.

Even when she was at the barrel-end of his gun and she had confessed to wanting nothing in this world but him.

It had seemed so easy then. A simple choice really. Death, or him. The mine, or him. Loneliness, or him. Every dark and dangerous thing her life had ever been threatened with…

Or him.

It was easy when he was everything she had wanted in the first place.

It was easy when he was simply…her father.

Kira takes the chair opposite her and rests her arms along the table, her head cocked slightly to the side, her smile – that perfectly practiced and measured lilt of her lips – her _smile_ – so suddenly foreign to Ziyal.

Yes, things were much easier when he was simply her father.

"Your paintings were selected for the Institute's exhibition, weren't they?" Kira asks, folding her arms across the table and watching her.

The genuine gleam of pride in her eyes is enough to loosen the tension in Ziyal's shoulders, enough to release the tight grip over her mug of raktajino.

Enough to remind her that this woman has never demanded the surrender of her father's love in exchange for her own.

Ziyal smiles herself, and for the first time in many days it feels right. "Yes." She lowers her head in embarrassment, though her excitement is already flooding through her, down to her fingertips. "It still feels like a dream."

"Well, believe it, Ziyal." The Major's hand slides effortlessly over her own.

"Thank you."

They share a companionable silence.

But as always – it only lasts so long.

"My father is holding a celebration for it tonight."

Kira's hand tightens minutely over Ziyal's, and then slowly, deliberately, it pulls away.

Ziyal gulps back her hesitation. "Nerys."

Kira releases a mock sigh, a quick smack of her lips that perfectly emulates disappointment. "I'm sorry, Ziyal, actually – I'm rather busy tonight." Such a convenient ruse.

But Ziyal has known her face long enough to recognize when it falters. Her gaze flicks down to the table. "No, you're not, Nerys."

A steady beat of silence filters between them. A boisterous roar of laughter floats up from the first floor of Quark's bar. Ziyal glances to the balcony.

"Ziyal…"

"You don't have to lie to me, you know."

She looks at her then. They lock gazes a moment. And Ziyal hates the sudden rush of doubt that clouds her thoughts, makes the air tight in her throat.

"Alright," Kira answers, voice a whisper, though not soft, not weak.

She has always envied her that.

"Alright, then," she repeats, nodding. She links her hands together over the table. "You already know why I won't come."

"My father."

"Your father."

It sits in the air between them like a curse.

She has never been Bajoran. She has never been Cardassian.

But she has also never been free of either.

"I don't understand," Ziyal breathes, shaking her head, her eyes already prickling with tears. "I don't understand how you can hate him so." Her voice cracks. She has to swallow back that stinging slice of desperation before she can continue. "He loves me. He's done right by me. And he's…he's changed. He regrets the wrongs he's done, the hurts he's inflicted. He tries, Nerys, he does. And I know he can be the kind of man you expect him to be. I _know_. Because I've seen it. He's…" She stops, licks her lips, levels her determined gaze on Kira. "He's always been a good father, Nerys, and even you cannot deny that." She spreads her palms across the table and tenses. "So why – _why_ – can't you give him a chance to prove it?"

Kira stares at her, fingers steepled together over the tabletop. She doesn't move. Barely breathes. And Ziyal is about to reach a hand toward her when the woman sighs. So long and so low and so dragging that it feels like she may never find air again.

And then she speaks.

"Ziyal."

She already knows. She already knows that she has lost her.

"I can't," Kira says simply.

Ziyal's brows dip low, her frustration and hurt splashing across her face in vivid red. "But _why_?"

Kira's gaze doesn't waver.

Nothing about the Major has ever wavered.

And really, Ziyal thinks she should have known this already. From the beginning.

Kira takes a deep, slow breath. "Because bad men – even when they are good fathers – are still, in the end, _bad men_."

There will never be a safe place between them, Ziyal suddenly realizes. Between Bajor and Cardassia. Between Kira and Dulkat and Garak. Between her past and her future. Between who she wishes to be and who she left behind in the Breen mine.

And maybe she should have known this earlier. Maybe she already did.

Ziyal glances toward a station window and catches sight of the cold space just past the glass.

Kira still looks nothing like her mother, and Ziyal still wonders if love is enough, and there are still two men occupying opposite sides of her heart.

She is still torn in two.

And her mirror still tells lies.

And between Bajor and Cardassia, there is still no peace to be had.

No peace for a daughter of both.

And no peace for a daughter of neither.

* * *

Ziyal is dead.

Everything else seems mutable. Colorless. Intangible and inconsequential.

The phaser burn through her chest cavity is real enough though, and Kira has a hard time tearing her gaze from the mortal wound. She grips at her arms and tries to still the tremors.

She knows it is useless.

Garak stands beside the bed, the dead girl's hand in his.

_The dead girl._

Kira looks off to the far wall. She knew, really. She had known for some time now.

Because nothing beautiful has ever existed between their two worlds.

She remembers the day she realized it – remembers the day she lost Ziyal to a galaxy's hatred. A late evening. Two warm mugs of raktajino settled on the coffee table. Kira lounging on the couch of Ziyal's living room. The easel in the corner. The soft stroke of her paint brush along the white paper. And Ziyal's soft, secret smile as she dipped into another color.

"What are you painting now?"

Ziyal's ridged nose scrunches up in uncertainty. "I'm not sure yet." She keeps her gaze on the painting as she continues. "I think I'll know when I'm finished."

Kira laughs, reaching for her mug. "Is that how you usually paint?"

Shrugging, Ziyal releases a soft hum of acknowledgement. "Sometimes." She cocks her head and smiles at her work. "It's a lot like life, really. We don't always know what we're making until we've gone far enough to look back on it."

Kira raises a brow and takes a sip of her raktajino. "Quite the philosopher now, aren't you?"

Ziyal flashes a smile back at Kira that the Major will remember for many years to come. "You get a lot of time to think when painting." She returns to her easel.

Kira places her mug back on the table and levels the young girl with a thoughtful gaze. "What do you tend to think about?"

Ziyal's brush stills over the paper, and then she sighs, almost imperceptibly. "I think about a lot of things, Nerys. I think about Garak, and you, and my father. I think about Bajor, and Cardassia. I think about where I've felt most at home and what does that _mean_ and how can I keep that?" She lowers the brush and raises her free hand to bunch in the collar of her dress. "I think about what I'm really trying to create here and will anybody ever be able to see it?"

Kira sits up slowly, her hands moving to her knees.

Ziyal looks back finally, a tender smile gracing her lips. "I think about what a wonderful thing it's been to live this life."

Kira can't help the scoff that leaves her, low and barely-there though it is. She shakes her head and looks down at the floor. "After everything you've been through, all the wrongs that have been done to you – you can still say that so happily?"

Nodding, Ziyal softens her gaze on the Major. "Because I have people like you in my life, Nerys. Because people like you love me."

Kira looks up at that and finds Ziyal smiling again – and it has never hurt so much before. She looks back down in shame, her hands threading together, elbows along her knees. "You think too well of the world, Ziyal." She says it like a sad resignation.

But Ziyal only takes it like a challenge, straightens up and returns to her painting, smile still fixed to her lips. "And you think too ill of it. But I love you anyway."

Kira's chest tightens. "Be careful, Ziyal. Love can blind you." It has never seemed more urgent that she understand this.

But then, there is a steady silence between them, and in the time it takes Kira to look back up at the young woman, in the time it takes to watch her slow, sure brush of red paint across the unmarred paper, in the time it takes to catch the wilted edges of her smile – in the time it takes to breathe and blink and realize suddenly, and starkly, that love was never the danger –

"So can hate," Ziyal says softly.

– Kira finally understands what it means to occupy that space in-between.

It means to lose. It means to be beaten and torn and abandoned. It means to never belong and to never go home. It means loneliness, and isolation, and to forever be looking at the backs of those you love.

She realizes – too late – that she has turned her back as well.

And Ziyal will be the one who suffers for it.

Because she has always existed between two worlds, and two loves, and two lives. Because Ziyal _is_ the space in-between.

Because the galaxy isn't ready for her.

And so it will kill her.

"She didn't deserve this," Garak whispers, more stoic than she thinks he even knew he could be, and Kira blinks back into the present. Back into this nightmare.

She watches as he lowers slightly to brace a hand along Ziyal's cold brow. The sharp line of his back is haunting beyond anything Kira has ever seen and she finds her eyes wet with tears far quicker than she is ready for.

"Nobody ever does," she answers, just before her voice breaks, just before she has to press a hand to her mouth the smother the sob.

Ziyal had never cried.

So Kira won't either.

Garak shakes his head, his touch smoothing down Ziyal's cheek and then retreating. He straightens, his other hand still clasped tightly over hers. His shoulders sag as he sighs. "No, but…but her especially."

Kira's eyes flutter closed as she presses her hand harder against her mouth, her bared teeth pressing a sob into her palm. It never finds air.

Gul Dukat's screams still echo painfully in her ears. She doesn't think they will ever leave.

"Her especially," Garak repeats, slowly loosening his hold of her hand, and then laying it reverently back along her chest. Her burned and wounded chest.

Kira's eyes blink open at the soft rustle. When Garak turns to her, his eyes are dry. He offers a single, stiff bow of his head, and then he leaves the room.

Kira stumbles back against the wall and presses a hand along it to brace herself.

Too good and too gentle and too soon for this world.

Ziyal had always been a tender thing.

And the universe has never been kind to tender things.


End file.
